Two gay men arrested in Uganda after peeping Tom catches them on video
Arrests are part of a crackdown on queer people following passing of the Anti-Homosexuality Act
Ugandan authorities intensify crackdown against LGBTQI+ persons
By Joto La Jiwe
The government of Uganda is tightening the noose around suspected and known LGBTQI+ persons through the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), which became law in May of this year.
The latest victims are two male adults who were allegedly caught having sex in a salon in Kampala.
Their arrest does not come as a surprise but the circumstances that led to their arrest do.
According to the Uganda Police spokesperson Fred Enanga, on October 20 at around 3pm, a student from one of the schools decided to take shelter from the heavy rainfall on the veranda of a salon.
“It was at this point that the student heard funny screaming sounds inside the salon,” Enanga told journalists.
The student reportedly used his phone to record the two suspects in the act of sex and later alerted security guards at nearby Total [fuel station] who called police, and the two suspects were arrested.
“If we are to go by the Police’s statement, it is the student who should be in prison for violating the rights of the two men to privacy and dignity,” says Dorothy Awori, a human rights activist. “These are the dangers of passing draconian laws. How can you be okay with an individual sneaking into a private space, to record a private moment and share it in public? Does AHA permit such an act? I doubt.”
In his remarks to journalists, Mr. Enanga urged the public to report what he referred to as suspicious behaviors to police and local authorities, a statement that is understood to incite the public against suspected or known LGBTQI+ persons.
Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, an award-winning author who escaped from the jaws of the regime’s torture squad, wondered why the Uganda Police was going after LGBTQI+ persons instead of arresting corrupt officials and human rights abusers, some of whom are within their own ranks.
For LGBT persons like Tana Sheri, a resident of Nabuti in Central Uganda, such developments are an affirmation that as long as AHA remains in place, she will continue living in fear.
“My only prayer and call for now is, repeal AHA. Nothing will give me more relief than the moment when the constitutional court will once again kill this bad law which is killing us” Sheri says.
Since the passing of AHA, cases of violence and arrests targeting suspected and known LGBTQI+ persons have been skyrocketing as evidenced in several studies by the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF).
Activists in Uganda are pinning their hopes of getting rid of the AHA in three petitions that have been filed by human rights defenders in the constitutional court seeking to have it struck down.
Joto La Jiwe, the author of this article, is a Ugandan correspondent for the African Human Rights Media Network. He writes under a pseudonym. Contact him at info@76crimes.com.
